Viva Verdi!
“When I am alone with my notes, my heart pounds, and the tears stream from my eyes.” — Verdi
I’m listening to “The Best of Verdi.” Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi. On YouTube. I don’t know why — no, wait, that’s a lie. I fired up my iMac. Went to Google. Typed in v-e-r-d-i. Hit the return button, rolling (metaphorically) the digital dice, thus unleashing (at my whim) the powerful shuffling and shellacking of pixels and packets to unearth my find.
Why?
Recently I began listening/watching the BBC’s “History of Italian opera-Viva Verdi” in seven parts — affascinante!
But why?
Some possibilities:
He’s Italian. My grandfather came from Italy.
Verdi created great music. I enjoy great music.
He’s an influential composer. I’m often impressed by influential people.
Verdi wrote a drinking song: “Libiamo ne’ lieti calici” from “La traviata.” Drinking songs are “cool.” For example, “I’d Rather Have a Bottle in Front of Me (than a frontal lobotomy)” by Randy Hanzlick.
He looks cool. Verdi is an amalgamation: a touch of Lloyd Bridges, a tad of Muse Watson (the guy who plays Mike Franks on “NCIS”) and a tid-bit of Sigmund Freud.
Truth is, I like opera — like to play it in the background when writing. (It helps exorcise niggling, nagging distractions from my sub-conscious as I’m pounding away on my keyboard.)
Recently I signed up for a “free” online class about opera. Had to jump through hoops to do it. (User ID, password, first-born, that sort of thing.) When I got done, I had access to the class. Except the class is long since over. Finished in November or thereabouts. What I ended up with was the “after-class,” which is/was an archived video discussion about the class.
Futility.
Yet, throughout this empty effort, Verdi played proudly in the background. Notes precious as teardrops. Music uplifting, like mountain air. And voices (oh, the soaring voices) fluttering, furling, curling, swirling like fresh, hand-washed sheets, shirts and shorts stretched out on a taut clothesline in my grandmother’s backyard — more than a half-century ago.
Her name was Angeline . . .
Jim Lamb is a retired journalist living in Florida. He’s author of “Orange Socks & Other Colorful Tales,” the story of how he survived Vietnam and kept his sense of humor. When he was a kid, he learned to tap-dance. For more about Jim, visit www.jslstories.com.
